CAL adds 7,000 seats for Tobago Carnival

Stephon Nicholas

Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) has added 7,000 more seats as it ramps up ca­pac­i­ty for the fifth an­nu­al To­ba­go Car­ni­val.

The fes­ti­val, sched­uled for Oc­to­ber 30 to No­vem­ber 1, is a ma­jor rev­enue earn­er for tourism stake­hold­ers and a mar­quee event on the is­land’s cal­en­dar.

Rev­ellers had been com­plain­ing about an in­abil­i­ty to get to the is­land, as flights were com­plete­ly booked months ago, while fer­ry tick­ets for the peak pe­ri­od sold out 24 hours af­ter be­com­ing avail­able two weeks ago.

In a me­dia re­lease on Tues­day, CAL said ad­di­tion­al do­mes­tic flights had been added for the pe­ri­od Oc­to­ber 15 to No­vem­ber 3. It added that flights are avail­able for sale and said it looked for­ward to wel­com­ing lo­cals and for­eign­ers to the car­ni­val.

The de­vel­op­ment comes fol­low­ing ad­vo­ca­cy by Sec­re­tary of Tourism Zor­isha Hack­ett, amid con­cerns over the lim­it­ed num­ber of seats on the air and sea bridge for the car­ni­val.

The Port Au­thor­i­ty has al­so promised to an­nounce sail­ings of the Buc­coo Reef and T&T Spir­it fast fer­ries for the car­ni­val. Both ves­sels were not ini­tial­ly list­ed for ser­vice in Oc­to­ber.